Bloody Bodmin
I wouldn’t say I try to injure myself lots or am injury prone but, I do manage to have more than my fair share of knocks whenever I try anything more sporting than running for a bus.

First big example of this (if you ignore drinking white spirit as a 2year old and getting a mention in the Cornish Guardian) was in my rugby playing days of a teen. I was always a skinny bugger when younger, not so much bigger now, but that didn’t stop my fool hardy skills of taking down any opposing player on a rugby pitch. The biggest guy in the school, I could take him down no problem. In reality it was probably more like a piece of string getting caught in their legs and tripping them up than any actual power from my part. Still, I wasn’t scared to take anyone out.

So I got played as a full back quite a lot. And all was fine until we played Bodmin, a town most renowned for its mental hospital.

The match was evenly pegged and it was halfway through the first half, when a nippy little winger made a break for it, and I was there waiting to stop him. We both ran at full pelt into each other, and I managed to take him down. But ah, that kinda hurt. Right, I don’t feel too good, kinda seeing stars now. Have to have a little sit down. My teacher comes over to check up on me, sees I’ve had a bit of knock and substitutes me. So I sit the game out, on the touchline, still not feeling too good.

The rest of the match is a bit of a blur, so is the hour coach ride home, and as I’m still not feeling too chipper, the teacher even gives me a lift to my house. Drops me off to my mum, “he’s had a bit of knock, you may want to send him to bed” was his advice. So my mum rightly does so.

After a few hours of me making some groaning noises (some may say, crying in agony) my mum decided to take me all the twenty yards distance to the local hospital. Explains my “bit of knock” situation, doctor examines me. “He needs to go to the big hospital, just for observation”. So an ambulance blue lights me the 20 miles, get rushed straight into casualty, Xrays, surgery…

Apparently the “bit of a knock” was a ruptured spleen. If I’d “slept it off” I would have died from internal bleeding. Spent the next 48 hours in intensive care before going home and having a month off school. Got a scar across my stomach to boot too.

Didn’t play rugby for a while and the next time I did, I got a broken nose for my troubles. I learned my lesson after that.
(CornishStanley can't post hyperlinks, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 13:56, Reply)